


pearls are for crying

by alltheworldsinmyhead



Series: royai drabbles [10]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, LOTS of inner monologuing, canon royai, riza looking back at her past with roy basically, royai wedding cause It's About Damn Time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 16:03:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19771663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alltheworldsinmyhead/pseuds/alltheworldsinmyhead
Summary: On the night before her wedding, Riza Hawkeye wonders about the past and tries to imagine what the future might have in store for her.





	pearls are for crying

**Author's Note:**

> This one has been dusting on my laptop's disc for waaaay too long. Written just because I was kinda interested how weird it would be for Hawkeye to get used to the thought of actually marrying Mustang.

> _let the years we're here be kind, be kind._  
>  _let our hearts, like doors, open wide, open wide._  
>  _settle our bones like wood over time, over time._  
>  _give us bread, give us salt, give us wine._
> 
> _\- Sleeping At Last, ''North''_
> 
> * * *

Riza nearly cries herself to sleep on the night before her wedding.

In an uncharacteristic fit of hysterics, she sobs for what feels like hours, her face hidden in Hayate’s soft fur as the dog anxiously licks her exposed skin. And even after she is done, she is still not quite sure why the tears came and why so many of them.

She has known she would one day marry Roy Mustang since the age of seventeen – known, not dreamt of doing so, as the dreams came long before that. But the certainty was born of something else. It was there, on a country road leading to the small train station, where he knelt on the dirt, kissed her hand and asked her to wait for him - and for Riza, it was as good as any marriage proposal she has ever heard of. Truth to be told, she has never thought she will have to wait so long, but this was not a price hard to pay.

This was not hard at all, to follow him, to help him climb that ladder. After the routine kicked in, it was, in fact, eerily easy to pretend that there always have been those two steps of the distance between them. Maybe that’s why she feels so strange right now, as they are about to close this gap.

Wiping her eyes, she gently touches the material of her wedding dress hanging from the door of her wardrobe. White silk, three-quarter sleeves, high back and dangerously deep front that Rebecca basically made her chose. Simple, no adornments, lace or pearls. Riza would not feel comfortable in frills after years of military drill, but she has a grim, heavy knowledge she will have to get used to them soon – politician’s wife should be the picture of elegance, after all. 

Still, pearls or no pearls, the dress is, without any question, the most beautiful thing she has ever owned. It is somehow fitting, as it also represents all the quiet hopes and dreams about her life that she harbored for years and now, apparently, are about to come through. This is true for every woman’s wedding dress probably, although Riza thinks hers is still special somehow, if not of anything else, then for a fact that, as she stares at its pristine whiteness, she cannot not think about ugly red stains that should mark it.

How many people are dead for her to be where she is right now? And how many of those deaths are on her?

As she has learned during the Restoration, Ishabalan’s wedding clothes are in the shade of the lightest gold – the dye produced in the painstaking, endless process of collecting tons of one particular species of desert beetles, then keeping them in a warm room until they start producing some kind of oil. The oil then has to be gathered and left in dark for two moon cycles, then some other things are added, the mixture is heated and what is left by the end is the tiny amount of dust-like powder, shiny as gold. And everything must be done by the bride and groom themselves, because – as some old lady has informed her graciously – “if they don’t have enough patience and determination to do this, what is the point of two of them getting married?”. 

Riza cannot really argue with this logic.

The finished product is beautiful; it sparkles in the light, making it look like as if the person wearing the clothes glowed from inside out. If she had a choice, she would much rather go with Ishbalan gold than Amestrian white for her wedding, but it’s not up for discussion. She has no right to do so now, if she ever had. Not being who she is, and not marrying who she marries.

She has witnessed a wedding in Ishbal, once. Back when it was still a war, not extermination, she was passing one of the villages in a military truck, reassigned from one post to another. She remembers a lot of light and a lot of music and her own surprise; how is it possible for them to celebrate, when there are Amestrian soldiers driving right next to them, the car packed to the brim with guns and snipers? Where their own people are being killed not so far away from the place they are laughing and dancing? She was young and naïve then, and now she understands much better this desperate hope for happiness, even during the darkest of times. Even when you feel you don’t deserve it, you still want it. Humans are foolish creatures, with weak, silky hearts, starved for love against all better judgment.

Riza slowly lays down on the carpet, her eyes stuck on the ceiling. She thinks about short, cold nights in Ishbal, her comrades huddled around the fire to warm their hands during shifts. How red and painfully dry her eyes would become after staring into the darkness for hours, barely daring to blink.

How skillfully Roy’s hands would unbutton her uniform, skim her clothes off, make her mind go blind for those blissful few minutes. Stress relief, this is all there was between them then. Fuck and forget, don’t die and come back for more. Maybe love blooms when you know you may not have another day to live, but it’s hard to keep it alive when all you do is kill, kill and kneel, fire, reload. Repeat. On and on.

What they had was violent and desperate, and nothing like right now. But it’s hard to forget about it, when she still has this phantom sensation sometimes, of her naked skin scraped raw by the sand.

Tomorrow, she will wake up early, Rebecca banging on the door, equipped with brushes and flowers and rouge, ready to paint her into the picture of serenity. She will curl her hair and wear the dress, and she intends to be very, very happy, and maybe cry a little also, because why not? It is her wedding, she has a right to do so. She knows that her prodigal grandfather would be ecstatic to give her away, but she politely declined when he asked. Her father gave her away to Roy years ago – and besides, she wants to make this journey by herself. It has always been about just the two of them, this bubble that they shared. Maybe Maes understood them best of all, but Maes is gone and Riza realizes she misses him so much tonight, violently almost.

Tomorrow, they finally arrive at the end of this long road that they traveled on with two-steps-distance between them. _From now on, you will walk beside me and your heart will beat beside mine.-_ she likes this part of her vows. This togetherness is not a new aspect, but it will be nice to make it somehow official, just because. She does not need marriage to love Roy or to be loved by him, but she needs it to wake up beside him every morning and so she will sign whatever they will give her.

Hayate’s cold nose bumps her hand, begging for scratches and she willingly obliges.

“Soon we’ll be leaving this place, living somewhere else. What do you think about it, my good boy?” she whispers to him and he happily wags his tail at the sound of her voice. She just has to laugh at that, even with tears still drying on her face. “Oh yes, I like it very much too.”

She closes her eyes again.

Tomorrow, she marries the love of her life. It’s is just yet another beginning, really. And she is grateful, so grateful, that it is given to her.

Curling on the carpet with one hand underneath her cheek, she is hit by the sudden thought; she would like to have primroses on their window stills. She vaugely remembers her mother planting them in their garden, decades ago. They smelled like summer and always looked as if they were smiling. Perhaps she can ask Roy to buy her a pot or two after a wedding – they would look lovely in their new apartment.

The night before her wedding, Riza dreams of pale-yellow flowers and how it will be, to wake up every morning with Roy and see them. Blooming, their insides golden. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed this little, rambling fic. If so, please drop me a comment. Thanks for reading! <3


End file.
